Read Excerpt 1:
I’d burned her bones, but she was back again.
And now she was pissed.
I fired my shotgun filled with salt rounds, but she vanished between when I pulled the trigger and when the shells fired. Then she materialized behind me and gave me a shove that sent me sprawling.
I’m a big guy, and thanks to a favor from a Slavic god, I’m immortal and pretty damned hard to injure. That doesn’t mean I like being tossed around by ill-tempered ghosts who have overstayed their welcome.
I rolled and came up with the shotgun locked and loaded, firing into the ghost’s midsection. That bought me a moment or two since salt fritzes ghosts’ ability to manifest, but I knew she wouldn’t be gone long.
I walked to where the tracks had been and stopped when the toe of my boot struck an old spike left from the long-ago rails. A scream reverberated through the forest. I pumped my shotgun and blasted her again before she could fully re-form. Then I set a salt circle around myself to keep her from knocking me around, dumped lighter fluid on the spike, and dropped a match on it.
People called the ghost the Lavender Lady. The stories said that she had been gathering the flowers back in the early 1900s when she was struck by a train—back before the tracks had been pulled up when trains still ran.
The town of Moonville was nothing but ruins now; the railroad was long gone, and the tunnel had fallen into disrepair, but the Lavender Lady still wandered the forest, surprising hikers and scaring thrill-seekers.
The Lady’s real name was Henrietta Austin, and while her body was found amid the flowers for which she was nicknamed, the evidence suggested foul play, covered up by the train accident story. Since the culprit was long dead, I couldn’t give Henrietta justice, but I might be able to give her peace.
But first, she would try her best to kill me.
Henrietta’s ghost hurled herself against the salt circle’s iridescent barrier, angry at fate and desperate to take it out on someone. Her corpse-pale face, marred by fury and decomposition, pressed against the scrim, and a terrible screech threatened to make my ears bleed.
“Depart from here, Henrietta Austin, and trouble the living no more,” I commanded. “Your time is long past, and your killer is dead. Let go and move on.”
The fire flared around the old rail spike, and I could see Henrietta’s spirit fading. The accelerant I’d poured on the metal stake wouldn’t melt iron, but I took the chance that flames would burn away enough of the coating to drive her off. Then I could pull the stake out of the ground, put it in the lead and iron box I’d brought, and make sure Henrietta never bothered anyone again.
Henrietta gave one last blood-curdling scream and vanished. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe her energy had dissipated that quickly after haunting these woods for a century, but perhaps she needed to recharge before attacking again.
By that time, I intended to have her anchor—the spike—out of her reach forever.
